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A man of 72 is to donate sperm to try to father his own 'grandchild'. He has been cleared to provide the sperm to his daughter-in-law to allow her to become a mother. Any baby born will be its grandfather's genetic child and a halfbrother or half-sister to the man it takes to be its father. What do you think about the case? Join the debate The case - believed to be the first of its kind in the UK - raises ethical questions about how well the child will cope with such unusual family circumstances. The Harley Street doctors...

Parents who conceal the fact that a child was conceived from donor sperm or eggs could face jail under rules proposed today. The information should be declared on birth certificates to ensure children learn the truth about their creation, says a powerful committee of MPs and peers. In a report which touches on a highly-sensitive ethical issue, they argue that it would give parents "the incentive to inform their child" at the time and in the manner of their own choosing. But because it is an offence to give false information on a birth certificate, anyone who refused could be...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Here's one more reason not to smoke -- smoking may damage sperm, passing along genetic damage to a man's children, Canadian researchers report. A study in mice shows that cigarette smoke caused changes in the DNA of sperm cells, the researchers said in this week's issue of the journal Cancer Research. Such mutations, know as germline mutations, are known to be permanent. "If inherited, these mutations persist as irreversible changes in the genetic composition of offspring," said Carole Yauk of Health Canada's Environmental and Occupational Toxicology Division, who led the study. "We have known that mothers who...

Women could one day grow their own sperm, says a scientist who today claims to have turned bone marrow into early-stage sperm cells. Click to enlarge His team is now studying how to grow fully fledged sperm from bone marrow as a means to restore fertility in young men who have undergone cancer treatments. It could be five years before trials start. Prof Karim Nayernia and his colleagues have completed similar experiments with female mice. Within a few months, they expect to see if the method can be extended so that early-stage sperm can in principle be made from women,...

Eating beef could threaten sons' fertility By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 1:37am BST 28/03/2007 The sons of women who regularly ate beef during pregnancy are more likely to have low sperm counts, a report claims today. The American researchers suggest the growth promoters used in cattle may be responsible. It has been known for more than 10 years that sperm counts had been falling in the western world, with scientists at Copenhagen University pointing to exposure to pesticides and industrial chemicals. The principle suspects included "gender-bender" chemicals that act like human sex hormones. The latest study - of...

NEW YORK - A couple can proceed with a lawsuit against a fertility clinic they filed after the wife gave birth to a daughter whose skin they thought was too dark to be their child, a judge has ruled. ADVERTISEMENT Thomas and Nancy Andrews, of Commack, N.Y., sued New York Medical Services for Reproductive Medicine, accusing the Manhattan clinic of medical malpractice and other offenses. They claim the Park Avenue clinic used another man's sperm to inseminate Nancy Andrews' eggs. Three DNA tests — a home kit and two professional laboratory tests — confirmed that Thomas Andrews was not the...

AUSTIN, Texas (CNN) -- Sometimes, when I sit down for an interview, there's a certain formality. I'm in one chair. The person I'm speaking to is in another. Not on this story. In a living room in Austin, Texas, I was on the floor. The subject of our story was grabbing my face, fascinated with my teeth and whatever else caught his attention. Yet it seemed appropriate. Benton Smith is an adorable, 8-month-old boy on the verge of walking. For one so young, he seemed typical when it came to exploring something new -- like my mouth. "Maybe he wants...

As family reunions go, it is sure to rank among the less conventional. Six teenagers across America conceived from the same sperm donor have finally met their biological father after he decided to reveal his identity. Jeffrey Harrison, whose offerings once ranked among California Cryobank’s most sought-after specimens, made himself known after reading a newspaper article about two teenage girls who had found out they had both been conceived with sperm from “Donor 150” – and wanted to get in touch with the man in question. With a profile billing him as a blue-eyed, 6-feet-tall lover of philosophy, music and...

In a remarkable op-ed appearing in the Washington Post, a young woman named Katrina Clark explains what it's like to know that you are the child of an anonymous sperm donor. It's not fun. The essay could be Exhibit A in any argument about the morality of artificially assisted human reproduction. The child of a loveless, sterile union between gametes speaks with authority when she reminds us that nobody asked for her opinion on the circumstances of her birth. Her mother (whom she still admires) got the baby she wanted. But the baby didn't get a father she could know....

Mobile phones are a serious hazard for sperm, according to a new US study which shows fertility plummets in men who use their mobiles a lot. The study, released at a medical conference in New Orleans this week, demonstrated a clear connection between hours spent chatting on a mobile and sparse and lazy sperm. Men who used mobile phones for more than four hours a day were found to have 25 percent lower sperm count than men who never used a mobile. The sperm quality was also poorer in those who frequently used mobiles, with the sperm swimming ability —...

Each of you has undoubtedly seen the clips of Bill Clinton bushwhacking Chris Wallace in a Fox News interview last Sunday. Claiming that his interlocutor was doing “the bidding of the right wing,” Clinton lectured Wallace with the same finger-wagging intensity he unleashed on the American people back in 1998. Clinton’s now-famous Lewinsky lie makes for an instructive comparison because it reminds us that this man, this former U.S. president, is a peerless prevaricator. “Clinton’s an unusually good liar,” said former Democrat Senator and Medal of Honor recipient Bob Kerrey. “Unusually good.” Indeed. Even the New York Times once lamented...

Children with older fathers have a significantly increased risk of having autism, a study has concluded. The UK and US researchers examined data on 132,271 children and said those born to men over 40 were six times more at risk than those born to men under 30. They said the study in Archives of General Psychiatry was further proof men also had "biological clocks". One UK expert said the study could be important in understanding the genetic mechanisms underlying autism. Autism and related conditions, known as autism spectrum disorders, have become increasingly common, affecting 50 in every 10,000 children as...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Thousands of sperm samples, some stored by men who feared they could become impotent, were destroyed when the temperature rose undetected in a refrigeration tank at the University of Florida. The problem at the university's Women's Health Center at Magnolia Parke began last October, when a faulty sensor on the liquid-nitrogen-filled tank apparently failed to alert anyone that the temperature had risen, said center spokesman Tom Fortner. The vast majority of the samples were from anonymous donors intended for use by couples with fertility problems. "Our anonymous donor sperm bank is essentially wiped out," Williams said.

Men may cringe at the idea, but sperm-producing stem cells found in testicles could be extracted, grown in the lab, and frozen for future use Men may cringe at the idea, but sperm-producing stem cells found in testicles could be extracted, grown in the lab, and frozen for future use. A team in the Netherlands has successfully harvested spermatogonial stem cells from cows and cultured them inside mouse testes. The hope is that the same thing could be done for men. "This is a very promising route to help young cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy," Dirk de Rooij of Utrecht University,...

See for example this thread first. Again, adult topics. These seem to make the best puns. Please scroll down for this. (Yes, this is stalling.) A blatant attempt to take up room. This regulation makes me squirm-- The Brits ban the sale of fresh sperm! To keep it the best It's subject to test It's the end of the Wanker-based firm!

BODIES of extinct Ice Age mammals, such as woolly mammoths, that have been frozen in permafrost for thousands of years may contain viable sperm that could be used to bring them back from the dead, scientists said yesterday. Research has indicated that mammalian sperm can survive being frozen for much longer than was previously thought, suggesting that it could potentially be recovered from species that have died out...

...Between 1990 and 2000 the U.S. teen pregnancy rate plummeted by 28 percent... [Many assume] sex education and conservative abstinence initiatives are both to thank for [this] fact ... What, though, if there's a third explanation, one that has nothing to do with just-say-no campaigns or safe-sex educational posters? What if teenagers are less fertile than they used to be? In a well-respected study published in Environmental Health Perspectives, [epidemiologist Shanna] Swan, now at the University of Rochester Medical Center, found that sperm counts are dropping by about 1.5 percent a year in the United States and 3 percent in...

A group of people dressed as sperm cross a main avenue during a campaign promoting use of condoms in Bogota, Colombia, in this May 18, 2005 file photo. Roman Catholic priests in a Colombian town are furious over a councilman's proposal that people 14 and older must carry a condom at all times to reduce unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2006. (AP Photo/ Javier Galeano, file)

MEN are often accused by women of, to put it bluntly, having their brains in their balls. A joke, of course. But perhaps not as much of one as people might like to think. For a study of bats carried out by Scott Pitnick, of Syracuse University in New York State, and his colleagues, suggests that there really is a trade-off between the two organs. With about 1,000 species, bats are the second-largest group of mammals (rodents are top), so there is plenty of material for interspecies studies. Dr Pitnick's project, published in this week's Proceedings of the Royal Society,...

Teenager finds sperm donor dad on internet Ian Sample, science correspondent Thursday November 3, 2005 The Guardian (UK) Using nothing more than a swab of saliva and the internet, a 15-year-old boy has tracked down his anonymous sperm donor father, according to details released today. By sending a swab taken from the inside of his cheek for genetic testing, the teenager was able to use genealogy websites to trace his father by looking for men with a matching Y-chromosome, which is passed down the male line. The genetic detective work has major implications for men who have donated sperm under...